Professor Barnes said he first asked his students to trace the lives of Wabash men who served in the Civil War as a way of giving them research experience. He recalled the many ways he and students tracked down information about the 529 men—from the College catalog and archives to the Indiana Historical Society to the National Archives and back to courthouses and county historical societies in Indiana. The students researched and wrote a biographical sketch of each, now included in edited form in the new book, 500 Strong.

'The library now has about 1,500 files on these 500-plus men,' Professor Barnes said. 'That is an enormous contribution from these many students to the archival collection of the College.'